The present invention relates to a compression encoding method, and more particularly to a fixed bit rate compression encoding method where the number of encoding bits is fixed per DCT block.
Recently, video data compression technology has been used in processing video signals as digital data in a digital video apparatus such as a digital VCR, an HDTV, a digital video camera or a video telephone.
Since known image compression technology has a 15 variable number of compressed coding bits according to picture complexity, a problem has been raised about how to keep the compression result constant in digital VCRs, HDTVs and other devices which require a constant compression result. Especially for compression in a digital VCR, when video signals corresponding to one picture or one segment thereof are to be encoded and recorded in a track of magnetic tape having limited length, if the number of encoded bits exceeds one track, a conventional digital VCR method records the excess encoded bits in a next track or, if the number of encoded bits exceeds that of the set bits, stops coding and ignores the remaining data.
However, if the excess encoded bits are recorded in a next track, then the operations of a special playback and high speed search are difficult to implement. Further, the recording method wherein the coding stops (and remaining data is ignored) is problematic since this recording method deteriorates the quality of the reproduced picture due to the partial loss of its image information.